jersey shore

One way to defend the faith is to do the best you can to provide "evidences" for why we should believe in Christianity. Things like the empty tomb, the rapid spread of Christianity, the reliability of the bible, etc...This is called evidential apologetics, and I do believe it has a place.

But another type of apologetics (defending the faith) is called pre-suppositional apologetics. Basically what you try to do here, is to gently show how the unbeliever already believes to some agree, but simply is suppressing that belief (Romans 1). So one would seek to find ways which the unbeliever's beliefs and actions are inconsistent with what they say the believe, and are more representative of what Christians believe.

One example that I've used before is the fact that all people deem human beings more important than animals. This is because God has made us in His image. At some level, everyone does believe this, though not everyone of course profess this. In fact, folks will certainly say-and rightly so-that if there is no God, then there is no way that you can say a person has worth more than an animal, or mosquito for that matter. Human beings don't have an inherit worth because we all come from the same place.

However, no one really lives this way, because at some level, they don't really believe this. I've often said that if a pit bull and person are each fighting for their lives, guess which one will be shot first? The pit bull, because dogs have less value than people. Most likely, even a PETA member would shoot the dog before it killed the person.

Here's a story where this just happened. Unfortunately the dog wasn't shot earlier, or better yet, the dog wasn't the family pet, so the woman wouldn't be in critical condition with the prospect of losing her arm.

Now does this "prove" anything? No it doesn't necessarily "prove" anything. But it is an indication that folks can't really live out a Darwinistic world-view. Folks in some way do believe human beings are in some way created in the image of God and have inherent worth.

The other day I in church I heard the word preached and found one small part of the message to be very suitable to a specific individual or two in the congregation. So I offered up a quick prayer to the Holy Spirit. I really desired for the parties to be convicted and return to the stream of living water instead of fetching water from broken and empty wells. Was this a wrong thing to do?

You may have heard it said before, "Don't think THEY need to hear this message, because YOU need to hear it."And that is true, but it is only partly true. It is true because I need to hear the gospel and its applications every week. But again, this is far too simplistic.

For instance, if a pastor is preaching on the importance of being regular in corporate worship (which we'll always preach b/c to be among God, His Word, His people is absolutely necessary-you won't grow if all three aren't in place), and someone who doesn't value coming to church hasn't heard this, then we ought to wish, pray for, and follow up with them. Or there could be someone involved in adultery, stealing, lying, and we should pray briefly for them.

Now here's the danger.

The danger in thinking that someone else needs to hear a message is that you can tend to think ONLY someone else needs to hear it, but that YOU don't need to. Even if I'm not literally unfaithful to my wife, I still commit adultery in my heart with lust, and all sin is described in general as spiritual adultery (Ezek 16:2, Matt 12:39, James 4:4). I should pray for myself when I pray for others.

One way to avoid what Jesus called "plank-eye"-at least I think he probably would have been cool with that terminology-is to see our own sin as of equal or greater value (sounds like a coupon doesn't it?). You may not be living in an adulterous relationship, but you do lust-you need prayer as well. You might be regular in worship, but that very often has nothing to do with Jesus-you need prayer as well.

So I think I was right in briefly praying for a specific conviction for a specific party while the word was being preached, because I also prayed for my own heart at the same time. If I had prayed for conviction for that party and NOT my own sin, then I would be guilty of Plank-eye.

So in summary, I believe it is OK to pray for conviction and for the Word to pierce the heart of those in the congregation, provided you also pray for conviction for yourself in that or another area.

jersey shore

Monday, September 21, 2009

Hot Priyamani and Bharath in Aarumugam

Cute Kajal Agarwal Birthday celebration photos

Sexy Shriya Saran at Toronto Film Festival stills

Hot Trisha krishnan tatoo show on chest

Friday, September 18, 2009

Pitbulls and Humans

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

idols and spray paint

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

They need to hear this message! Should we pray for others?